


To Whisper and Hush

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Not an AU this time, fancy that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 16:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7395145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy and Clarke share a quiet moment overlooking a midsummer festival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Whisper and Hush

**Author's Note:**

> Not an AU! Who would've thought? I ignored the setup for s4 because i'm not super excited about it and didn't want to deal with it.
> 
> Inspired by the insanity that is July 4th in the U.S.

“There you are.”

Clarke doesn’t even have to turn around. She’s been expecting him to find her sitting here, even since before she climbed up to sit on the ledge that juts over her cabin window.

“Took you long enough,” she teases as he drops down next to her. His legs dangle further than hers, brushing up against the wooden wall while hers swing free.

“I was getting supplies.”

“Is that the wine Luna sent?”

“Yep.” He holds up a box with a grin that makes Clarke’s heart stutter. “And Monty’s latest.”

It’s not that all their Earth Skills knowledge is useless; much of it has led them to figure things out over the past year. The plants Clarke learned about, the ones they saved by bringing on the Ark a century ago, are no longer what grows in the ground. Strawberries and blueberries are a thing of the past, but Monty has managed to sweeten some of the non-poisonous berries they’ve found nearby camp so that they're sweet and delicious.

“I swear, these are the only good thing about this season.”

“For real?” Bellamy asks, incredulous. “This is so much better than freezing our asses off in the snow for two months.”

“You would think so,” Clarke grumbles. Bellamy has taken to summer like he was born for it, the golden hue of his skin deepening, his freckles growing more pronounced as he spends more time in the sun. Meanwhile, Clarke's skin skips straight from a ghostly white to a tender pink. “I hate it all: the mosquitos, the pollen, the sticky, gross heat. At least in winter we can bundle up to keep warm. There are only so many layers I can take off before I start shedding skin.”

“Feel free to undress anytime,” he smirks. Clarke rolls her eyes and bumps his shoulder with hers, glad the heat is already bringing a flush to her cheeks.

“Maybe we can make that a thing at next year’s festival,” Clarke muses. “I wouldn’t mind showing a little more skin as long as I’m not the only one.”

“I can only imagine what the Grounders would think of such a dress code,” Bellamy snorts, looking out over the camp. Azgeda and Boat People and Arkadians all intersperse together by the fire. There’s music playing through the rover’s speakers and plenty of booze flowing to keep everyone happy, but to see them _mingling_ still kind of blows Clarke’s mind.

“You still think it was a good idea to invite them?” He asks.

“I think the fact they showed up is a good sign. Even more impressive, nobody’s tried to kill Murphy yet.”

Her eyes land on Emori, chin jutting out as she listens to something one of the Azgeda is saying. She looks ready to pick a fight. For all Murphy appears bored and dismissive standing behind her, Clarke knows that can change in an instant.

“That is something to be proud of.” Bellamy offers her a berry and she pops it in her mouth, smiling at the thought of it turning her lips and tongue purple.

Her eyes drift across the clearing where Bryan and Monty are holding each other up, laughing as Miller and Harper try to demolish the other in a game of their own invention. They’re drawing a crowd of onlookers from all tribes, and it looks to Clarke like there might be some betting happening.

“ _This_ is something to be proud of,” she says quietly, looking out over the crowd. “I think we can officially call Midsummer Festival a success.”

“I don’t know if you’re drunk enough to qualify it as a success.”

Clarke lets a laugh slip out.

“That’s your goal for tonight? To get me drunk?”

“I think you could use it,” he shrugs. “Make you relax a little, make some memories you won’t remember.” He pauses. “Making sure you’re– good– is always my priority.”

Her heart twists a little at that. Of course it is. He’s always worrying about other people, trying to make sure everyone is happy and taken care of. It’s a miracle they even got to a place where those seem like achievable goals, yet Bellamy has made them his personal mission.

“I’m good,” she assures him, reaching over to squeeze his hand gently. “Promise.”

He squeezes back and doesn’t let go. They’re quiet for a moment, listening as the song changes from something upbeat to what Monty insists is a ‘classic rock ballad’ and Raven insists is ‘sentimental garbage.’

“Does that mean I get to drink the whole bottle?” He asks suddenly and Clarke lets go as she laughs so he can remove the cork and pour it into one of the tin cups he stole.

“Did you get to talk to Octavia?” She asks, catching a glimpse of his sister as she dances by the fire.

She looks carefree and light, like the teenager she still is, the girl Clarke watched take the first steps onto Earth, but she doesn’t go near Arkadians for long and she doesn’t let her conversations grow serious. She’s more untethered than ever, especially since she’s spent the last year floating between tribes as she pleases. She even stops by Arkadia from time to time to sit with Bellamy or argue with him. Things between them are still tense and unresolved but Clarke thinks Octavia knows how worry would eat away at him if she never visited at all. At this point she’s not actively trying to punish Bellamy, even if she hasn’t forgiven him yet.

“She’s staying with Harper tonight. We’re going to have breakfast together tomorrow before she leaves to visit Indra.” He lets a sigh loose. “I gave her that belt I made. The one with all the holsters?”

Clarke hums, remembering the hours he spent laboring over it. She’d known he wasn’t doing that for himself.

“I think she liked it. Hard to tell, since she didn’t say much. But still.” He lifts one shoulder. “Baby steps.”

“Is that why you were so insistent on making this a gift-giving holiday?”

“Maybe.” He ducks his head sheepishly.

They’d planned this festival for weeks, trying to figure out the best way to avoid offending anyone. Trying to figure out how it could be used strategically to foster peace and boost morale after a harsh winter and a gloomy spring.

After coming to the ground, and _especially_ after A.L.I.E., nobody was interested in celebrating Unity Day anymore. They’d come up with a Midsummer Festival as a replacement. A celebration of a different kind of survival and a different kind of unity.

In the planning stages, Bellamy had been firm that he thought an exchange of gifts was in order. He’d argued that it would build relationships with the Grounders, that it would build anticipation for the holiday and give people something more to look forward to than free booze and a shortened work detail.

But Clarke can also see how his intense care for others could have manifested itself in a desire to do things like meticulously craft a nice leather belt for his sister. She can’t fault him for it, but she can tease him about it.

“Get anything good?” He asks, diverting her question.

“Besides my own bottle of wine? Miller wrote me a haiku about how glad he is I don’t have dreadlocks anymore. And Monty gave me a box with a bunch of little cubbyholes to keep herbs and stuff in for the med bay.”

“Damn. That’s a good one.”

“I know. Monty’s not messing around wit the gifts.”

“I think my favorite one is the jar of sand I got from Murphy.”

“You did not.” She bursts into laughter when he produces the jar in question from his pack.

“Apparently it all came out of his pockets.” Bellamy shakes his head, smiling down at the jar. “He said his true gift to me is that now I never have any reason to go out that direction.”

“And your real gift to him was the look on your face when he gave it to you.” Clarke hands the jar back. “Don’t be too offended. Screwing with you is his way of showing affection.”

“Trust me, I know.” He sets the jar carefully back in his bag, like he wants to make sure it remains in tact. “You get anything from Raven or Jasper?”

“Huh. No I did not. Come to think of it, I haven’t even seen them recently.”

There’s a beat while Bellamy scans the crowd for a familiar ponytail, or firelight glinting off plastic goggles.

“Should we be worried?” He asks.

“We don’t think they’re off somewhere hooking up, do we?”

“I meant worried that they’re hurt or lost or in trouble.”

Clarke considers the question. It’s nice that her first instinct when she can’t find her friends is no longer to panic about their well-being. It honestly hadn’t crossed her mind.

“I think they’re okay,” she says, savoring the words. Because he’s Bellamy, and he’s always been able to read her like one of his antique novels, he notices.

“Weird to say out loud, right?”

“Weird,” she agrees. “But great.”

The song changes again, this time to something with a beat that resonates in the structure beneath them. Clarke can feel it in her hands, thundering like a pulse. It feels like _living_ and she finds she likes it.

“I have something for you,” he says after a moment, his quiet tone contrasting with the raucous music. “Nothing too– It’s not–”

“Stop feeling awkward about it and give me my present,” she teases, scooting closer and holding out a hand. He huffs (to cover his laugh) and reaches in his pack again.

“Close your eyes.”

She does as she’s told and after a moment she can feel something resting on her palm. It’s light but it’s there and when he withdraws his hand her eyes fly open.

He’s given her a short strip of braided leather. It’s got beads woven in here and there, but it’s otherwise simple. Sturdy but delicate-looking.

“You can wear it as a bracelet,” he says, eyes glued to her face to evaluate her reaction. “But I also thought– I noticed the strap on your dad’s watch is getting pretty frayed and I thought you could replace it with this. If you wanted to. You know, keep the face and everything but make sure it won’t break and fall off anywhere.”

Clarke swallows down the lump in her throat.

“I love it.” Her voice is a little strangled but he pretends not to notice. She slides her dad’s watch off one wrist and hands it to him. “Will you do it?”

His fingers move with precision, surprisingly deft as he uses his pocket knife to cut through what’s left of the original strap and thread the leather band through in its place. When he moves to fasten the watch around her arm, his fingers brush the soft skin on the inside of her wrist and she’s sure he can feel her pulse skip.

“There.” His thumb stays near the band, stroking soothing circles against her skin. “Perfect.”

She slides her hand back into his and fills the empty spaces between his fingers with her own.

“Thank you, Bellamy.”

He tugs her in and presses a kiss to her temple.

“Don’t mention it.”

They sit like that until Clarke thinks she’s got herself under control again, at which time she pushes back to look at him and say, “I’ve got something for you too.” She drops her gift into his lap before he can close his eyes, inexplicably nervous as he reaches for it.

“It’s a book,” he grins. “Imagine my surprise.”

He flips open to the inside page and Clarke can’t see what’s written there but she knows the words by heart just the same. She wrote them.

  


_To Bellamy,_

_Because I wish that you could see yourself the way that I see you._

_Love, Clarke_

  


His breath catches and he starts flipping through the pages.

There’s Octavia throwing herself into his arms on the dropship before they opened the doors. The cocky smirk he’d worn those first few days on the ground. Him teasing Charlotte. His face, dramatically lit as he looks at the sky, the words ‘I wouldn’t know what to wish for,’ scrawled at the bottom of the page. There are hands grasping each other for dear life, hands correcting her hold on a rifle, hands covering each other as they pull a lever with the word ‘together’ tucked into the margin.

It’s Bellamy on every page– Bellamy helping and caring and leading and protecting– and to Clarke it’s horribly obvious that she’s crazy about him. That she thinks he’s good despite his mistakes. That she thinks he’s worthy of being loved.

“I’m not as good with words as you are,” she offers when he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t react at all, only flips wordlessly through the sketchbook. “But they used to say that a picture’s worth a thousand words, and I’m pretty good with pictures. At least, I hope I am.”

He closes the book gingerly, setting it aside before turning to face Clarke and gathering her into his arms. She can feel his uneven breathing and she rests her forehead against his, letting him find a pace with hers. Her hands drift lightly up and down his back, scratching gently with her nails until he seems calmer.

“Apparently I’m not always good with words.”

She laughs and though she’s never done it before, though it couldn’t possibly be muscle memory, it’s so _easy_ to lean in and kiss him softly at the corner of his mouth. He turns his head to intercept the kiss, catching it squarely on his lips. It’s nothing more than a gentle pressure, a sweet promise, his fingers dancing along her jaw. She’s about to tilt her head and change the angle enough to deepen the kiss when they’re startled apart by a loud _boom_.

“What the hell was that?”

Her heart races as she starts to whip around. Bellamy still has her firmly in his arms, so she can only go far enough to see that all their guests are staring up at the sky.

“I think we found our missing pyromaniacs.” She follows his line of sight just in time to see a ball of light launch into the sky, fizzle, and then explode into a shower of red and gold sparks.

“Fireworks,” she breathes in awe, following the trail as two more begin their ascents. One of these is green and the other branches again and again until it disappears, leaving a ghost of smoke in its wake.

She turns to look back at Bellamy, her breath leaving her chest when his dark eyes are already trained on her. One of his hands comes up to tuck her hair behind her ear, the other still settled on her lower back.

“I think Jasper and Raven win best gift bragging rights,” she whispers as she hears the pop of another firework above them and sees the lights on Bellamy’s face flicker.

“They’re pretty great,” he says magnanimously. “But have you seen my jar of sand?”

Her laughter gets in the way as he kisses her again, just as soft and sweet as the first time, before laying back on the roof and pulling her down next to him. She rolls into his side, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder and smiling up at the sky.

It’s strange to think sometimes that they used to live up there, far above treetops and fireworks, among stars and comets and the emptiness of space. They’ve been on the ground for less than a year and already it feels more hers than the Ark ever did.

The ground has made a different Clarke than the one who fell from the sky. She has loved, lost, changed, grown. She has plenty of people she loves now, a home that feels permanent, a peace that feels like it might hold. She’s seen and done enough on the ground to last her many lifetimes, so it’s the moments like this that she lives for now.

Small, unassuming moments when she can sit with her favorite person and know that her people are safe and happy. From the outside it might not look like much. But to Clarke, it’s everything.


End file.
